The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 283 V8 57 Chevy 3100 replacement wire harness Coil

I got a replacement wire harness from CLassic Parts http://www.classicparts.com/1955-59-Wiring-Harness-Generator/productinfo/52-027/ for 55-57 generator which is what mine is but I have a V8 and this seems to be wired for a straight 6.

Not much difference that I can tell. But the coil wire was wrapped with the starter wires most of the way down and then splits off the last couple feet. But that is good for a 6 cylinder as the coil is down on the right hand side of the engine near the starter but on the V8 the coil is up on the engine at the rear to the left of center. The wire really needs to be wrapped with the resister wires and then go out the resister hole in the firewall not the starter hole.

I guess I will have to unwrap those wires and rewrap it to get it to run to the correct hole in the firewall.

Does that all sound correct?

Or am I missing something?

Hy svwilbur, I believe you have a firm understanding of the problem, and how to fix it.

If you are not too far along in the installation of the wire loom you could send it back and get the correct wire loom for a V-8. You may find that other parts of the loom are not correct for the components also.
Fred

The rest of theharness seems OK. And actually I see that depending on the ignition switch you may need a wire run down there to the solenoid. On my old ignition switch that only had one IGN pole it was required to have that green coil wire go to the solenoid or it would not start. It turned over but would not get spark until you released the key from the START position and you would get one quick ignition that might start itas the engine is still turning from momentum but since the starter is not doing anymore it may or may not catch. With the wire it would crank and get spark all the time in START mode. I guess it was some sort of bypass providing power to the coil while cranking.

With the ignition swithes with IGN1 and IGN2 it looks like they have the Green wire at the switch and it may take care of the need for the wire down to the solenoid. So that it is not needed. The directions for the wireing harnesss show that is not needed for the IGN1 IGN2 type of switches.

So I think I will just tape it up for now and run a wire from the resister to the coil and see if it starts and runs OK without the other wire on the selonoid as I changed the switch to the IGN12 IGN2 type switch.

I hope I am thinking of this correctly.


THE LAST THING I WANT IS TO HOOK UP THE BATTERY AND FRY MY NEW WIRES!!

Kind of scary...

Hy svwilbur, the "green" wire was used to provide a full twelve volts to the coil during starting, either through the "ign 1, ign 2" type switch, or through the second small terminal on the starter solenoid. The "green" wire bypassed the ignition resistor, by either hooking up to the resistor output terminal, or hooking directly to the coil input terminal. If you leave this wire out of the starting circuit you may experience hard starting problems. A GM engineer once said "parts left out cost nothing, and cause no service problems, so if we put the part in the vehicle, you can be sure we think it is required". Hope that helps.

and back atcha, see my reply in your other thread

Bill

I actually have upgraded my coil to a Pertronix's Flame-throwerIII and IgnitorIII module in the distributor. It is a smart electronic ignition and senses the lobe without a magnetic ring like the old Igniters used. It works real well. And in the instructions it says to eliminate the resister and just splice the wires together.. I left the resister but stuck all wires on one pole so that two greens and the brown were all on one pole (esentially spliced). I plan to do the some with this new wiring harness once I get it functional. The IgniterIII has adaptive dwell, Peak current levels prior to spark, Auto spark timing, senses startup and developes more energy for quicker starts, programable REV limiter, etc.

With that in mind I guess I can just splice the Brown and green that go to the resisiter to a 3rd wire to the + Coil and be done with all the green wires.